Guest column: Camp Waterloo one example of negligent state policy

Above the centuries-old oaks and hickory woods that tower over much of the Waterloo Recreation Area, above the babbling brooks that meander, atop the crest of ancient glacial ridges overgrown with some of the rarest ecologies on earth sits Camp Waterloo.

Camp Waterloo is not a bucolic-sounding summer camp, but a state prison, abandoned by the Michigan Department of Corrections more than a decade ago. Walking up steep gravel hills, past the pretty sight of girls watering their horses in a stream, the burned and rotting remains of a correction facility is a frightful discovery. The roofs of many of the prison’s entry buildings were torched by arson years ago, and all the broken windows seem to stare like blackened eye sockets.

A wave of disbelief and disappointment creeps out from behind the kicked-in doors and crumbled cinderblock walls. The foul smell of charred timber and mildew-soaked clothing stings the nostrils. Could this wreckage really be owned and operated by the great state of Michigan?

Inconceivably, yes. The Michigan Department of Corrections walked away from Camp Waterloo 10 years ago, leaving doors unlocked, equipment scattered around the gym floor, roomfuls of paper documents piled high, thousands of pairs of new shoes and winter parkas left to molder, and acres of septic fields unmonitored. Though the abandoned prison sits on Department of Natural Resources land, within the boundaries of the largest public recreation area in the Lower Peninsula, visited by more than 600,000 each year, the DNR has no jurisdiction to demolish this blight on its property.

Nor has the Department of Corrections felt any responsibility or compulsion to clean up its mess. Worse, Camp Waterloo is one of seven prison facilities across the state the corrections department has abandoned on Department of Natural Resources lands.

It is time to end this scandalous corrections policy. Local elected officials, township boards and county commissioners should urge corrections Director Daniel Heyns, to demolish these hazardous structures.

Heyns, the former sheriff of Jackson County, has earned a reputation for responsible law enforcement leadership. Heyns’ directorship of the corrections department represents the best opportunity for this huge state agency to rectify its negligent policy. State Rep. Mike Shirkey, R-Clark Lake, whose district includes Camp Waterloo, can also exert leadership in the Legislature.

Saying, “That is not my responsibility, That is their property, That is not in my budget,” won’t satisfy constituents who live near these ugly edifices, or visit our state parks. Shirkey should set a timeline, within one year, for the demolition of Camp Waterloo and the Brighton prisons, and then urge appropriations to accomplish that fact.

If mismanagement in part caused Michigan’s fiscal crisis, then the reckless abandonment of state prisons on state land is a most glaring example. Festering problems don’t resolve themselves; they only worsen. Tear down these abandoned prisons now.

— Mark Muhich lives in Summit Township and is member of the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter Executive Committee.